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Re: GatLight V3 - Carbon Fiber / Titanium with Cree XR-E

I would again like to support your start up business. AKA, I'll buy one (unless something unforseen happens)

I do have a few questions: In the cad drawing- is it missing the design (screws) to get the back off to put the battery in? If not, how will replacing the battery be accomplished? Will the switch still slightly crush the battery?

Re: GatLight V3 - Carbon Fiber / Titanium with Cree XR-E

Man... I love the design of this light, and I would be VERY interested in a less expensive version. How about a completely carbon fiber body?

I'm also wondering if the current head design is deep enough for the new XR-E LED. I agree, too, that I would prefer to see the driver optimized for a 3.6 volt rechargable battery.

Good luck with taking your garage based business to the next level. I love seeing the American dream come true for folks with vision, determination, and the ability to take their ideas from a just a thought, all the way through to a finished product. What a rush!

Re: GatLight V3 - Carbon Fiber / Titanium with Cree XR-E

Re: GatLight V3 - Carbon Fiber / Titanium with Cree XR-E

Thanks for the great feedback... judging from the interest... I think we can get ready to produce this light. This time we also try to not make you prepay now and deliver in a couple of months.. our goal is to have you pay and deliver the light a week later.

let me answer some questions.

BinCode: Well it will be the most premium bins we can get from the distributor. We'll do our best..... of course we might provide the option as we did with the V1 and V2 that you can provide your own LED (if you get your hands on a better one than we can).

Waterproof

Originally Posted by bmstrong

Interested in one.
I'd really like the design to be more waterproof. Any chance?

Well that design is probably submersible to 1m. It should be more waterproof than the V1 (shown below) - obviously tests pending. The Carbon Fiber is bonded to the Metal and sealed... the knob in the back has an Oring and the optics in the front is pressing against an Oring... sealing the light from the front.

Submersed V1 GatLight

Serialz: I really missed not having serials on the V2... it was a nice touch on the V1... Unless its cost or time prohibitive to do it we really wanna add serial numbers.

Pushbutton in the back: Well if there is an push button assembly with 0.5 inch diameter or less... we could add it. We have found some key components to probably do it ourselves... but its involved. Most likely it might be an upgrade later on... where you just upgrade your knob with a "push button enabled" knob in the future. That wouldn't delay this version.

Tritium: Let us think about that... we might machine a groove in there so it can be easily added... Where would you want it... as a bar underneath the Logo... however if a push button where to come... we'd still need another location.. Its a bit hard to find something that works with the overall design.

GlowRing: As far as I know they don't come in the size we need them in. Anyone know a supplier where we can see the available sizes so we can see if we can make one work?

Driver Optimized for 3.6V battery
Well we had this discussion with the V2 which was optimized for rechargeable 3.6V batteries. So again here is the problem with that. If you wanna support 3.6V batteries, you need a voltage cut off at at least 2.5V otherwise your cells will be done in no time (bec. of over discharge). So we had a cut off in the v2. The problem is if you use a 3V cells the voltage in that light, the drop under full load is about 1V.... so if you optimize for 3.6V... you don't get full brightness with 3V cells... or you leave out the low voltage cut off...which means you'll ruin your rechargeable cells. For the V3 we decided to focus on 3V primary lithiums. Those who want rechargeables can get 3V rechargeable cells.

Is head design deep enough for the XR-EWell the optics for the XR-E is twice as long as the V2 optics we used for the LuxIII GatLight V2/V1's. One more thing... deeper doesnt automatically mean better... its a complex interaction between deeper, tolerances and other optical parameters. In our case we also have to factor in the Oring pressing against the optics... we tested all of'em out there. The one we chose creates the brighest hotspot and a nice beam pattern.

GatLight Owner discount
Interesting idea...we'll think about it...

Current v3 work
Currently we are looking at different ideas of how to add the logo and the serial numbers. We probably make a seperate disc with the logo/serial numbers engraved/laser etched... which provides us with the option to use different colors...materials for that disc.... here is a rendering of what something like this would look like... gold plated (below) would be nice.. however it scratches easily... there would be other options however they are a bit more expensive... (Titanium Nitride coated Titanium)... we'll see... also Annodized Aluminum might look nice...